With Bengaluru Urban reporting a whopping 1,525 of the total 2,627 cases and 45 of the 71 deaths reported on Sunday, members of the State’s COVID-19 expert and technical advisory committees have now recommended that Karnataka go in for a lockdown of at least three weeks. Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa has announced a week’s lockdown in Bengaluru Urban and Rural districts from Tuesday.

With 2,627 new cases reported on Sunday, the total number of positive cases in the State touched 38,843. Bengaluru Urban, which has been witnessing a surge day by day, recorded 45 of the 71 deaths on Sunday. As many as 274 of the total 684 deaths so far in Karnataka have been from Bengaluru.

Saying that the numbers could go up further in the coming days if measures are not initiated on a war footing, experts are now of the view that a week’s lockdown will not serve any purpose.

V. Ravi, senior professor and head of Neurovirology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, who is part of the COVID-19 expert committee, said, “Scientifically, a minimum three-week lockdown is essential to cut down the level of transmission.”

“Actually, a total lockdown of six weeks is what is recommended, like what happened during lockdown 1.0 wherein three incubation cycles were cut off. We cannot achieve anything with a week’s lockdown,” he said.

Giridhara K. Babu, member of the COVID-19 technical advisory committee, who is also of the view that a three-week lockdown is required for any meaningful effect, said this would be an opportunity for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to gear up and prepare for the worst. “There were several systematic problems with surveillance, testing, contact tracing, and tracking, which resulted in several missed cases and the virus’ continued spread. This opportunity [lockdown] should be used for case identification of every symptomatic person by appropriate testing and timely isolation. Systems of contact tracing and quarantining should also be strengthened by decentralising and supporting urban health centres with additional manpower, logistics and autonomy,” he said.

Sources said based on the recommendation of experts, the government would take a call on lockdown extension by the end of the week.